Monday the 11th of October was Thanksgiving, so I didn't have to go in to work. That was a good thing, as it was a relatively nice day outside and I wanted to go down to Blackie Spit, where a fellow birder had seen a White-throated Sparrow and a Long-billed Curlew the day before.

I started in a big gravel parking lot and walked along a dyke towards the entrance to some community gardens. There are channels of water on each side of the dyke, and it was pretty thick with bugs. Dauntless, I endured the bugs to take some photos of some ducks in the channel to my left.

First up were a few Green-winged Teal. These guys are small ducks, and I hadn't recalled seeing any since the late spring. This is a male.

I like the Green-winged's rusty-red and green face patttern. This one was all fresh and colorful, as this duck is undergoing his fall molt. When he's done with it, the scaly pattern on his side will have given way to a smooth grey--some patches of which have already started to appear.

The other ducks that were paddling around were Northern Shovelers. This one's a female.

She got upset when I made fun of her bill, and went steaming off in the other direction. Some ducks just don't have a sense of humor.

A little farther along, I encountered another channel denizen, a Great Blue Heron. He had been standing very still and I was well past him when I noticed him.

For some reason, the color turned out really rich on those shots. Maybe the sparrow had fresh plumage.

Out on the bay, there was a lonely Western Grebe.

But I didn't see the curlew that I had come looking for. That was okay, because there was still a White-throated Sparrow to look for. I proceded over to the entrance to the community gardens, where the sparrow had been seen the day before. I spent about twenty minutes there with no luck on the sparrow.

Just as I was leaving, I saw a bird fly in and start flitting quickly from branch to branch in a bush beside the path. This is fairly typical warbler behavior, so I thought I had a warbler on my hands. From what I could see, he was also shaped like a warbler. I didn't get a very good shot of him; the best one has the front of his face hidden.

He's pretty neat, with his blue legs and orange feet, dark yellow wings and white eye-ring. I was pretty excited by him. Warblers can be really pretty.

Later, looking through the warbler section of my guide books, I wasn't able to identify him. Some other birders helped me out--it turns out that he was a Ruby-crowned Kinglet, which is an Old World warbler, not a warbler in the usual sense. (And they're found in a different section of the guide book.)

Anyhow, the disappointment over the White-throated Sparrow was lost when the warbler visited, and I proceeded back down the path closely scanning the bushes where the little guy had flown off to. There I found another little bird, but this one I knew. He's a Bushtit.

I didn't find anything else on my way back to my car--just more House Sparrows, Green-winged Teal, and the second heron, still perched on the pumphouse roof. It was only a little after noon, so I decided to make a short lunch break and then head over to Reifel. The day before, a Northern Saw-whet Owl had been seen at Reifel. A Saw-whet would be a lifer for me.

Well, I ended up stopping before Reifel. On the way, quite near the bridge to Westham Island, I saw a Bald Eagle on a utility pole beside the road. I pulled over and pulled out my camera and started pulling on the shutter...or pressing it or whatever. I got lots of fairly close shots.

The eagle was quite calm, sitting around doing not much of anything, except maybe occasionally scratching himself. Check out the claw on this guy.

I know some birders will disagree with me, but I think that he has a problem with earwax.

Earwax or no, he soon perked up and started paying attention.

And he took off, flying almost right over me.

He swooped down on a pile of wood chips or mulch across the road. (No, I was nowhere near Iona; the wood chips are a coincidence.)

I thought that he might land there, but he just made a touch-and-go, as all the little birds around fled for their lives.

A little farther along, the eagle turned his head under and looked back at his claws. (Here he's much more distant, so the photos aren't anywhere near as good.)

I figure he had seen some sort of rodent scurrying around the pile of chips, and had just missed grabbing them when he hit the pile.

Well, I was really pleased now. This was my best photo session with an eagle ever, and I was pretty sure I had gotten some interesting shots. I headed on towards Reifel in a bouncy mood.

Just outside of Reifel, I spotted another raptor hopping around atop a utility pole. This one was a Red-tailed Hawk. It's one of the whiter varieties of the Red-tailed, but I don't know which one.

A little further along, I found another Bald Eagle, perched in a tree beside the entrance to Reifel. I got a few shots of it, but none to compare with the earlier eagle photos.

Arriving at Reifel, I encountered my pals George and Carlo (along with a few other birders who I don't know), who were leaving, and George gave me spot-on directions to the Northern Saw-whet Owl.

I was short on time, so I went pretty much directly to where the owl was supposed to be, and stood and stared and couldn't find it. After about five minutes of this, some passing birders asked what I was looking at, and I told them there was supposed to be an owl there, and they said "oh, yeah, I see it" and pointed it out to me. And there he was...it was pretty funny that I didn't see him before even though I was looking right at him. I got some okay photos of him, considering how far he was back in the branches.

I think the furriness is just from old, ragged feathers, but I'm not sure. Maybe he's wet. Whatever the reason, he's a very pretty subject. It was too bad I couldn't stay and get more shots of him, but I was pretty thankful for a great day in the field.

Gobble gobble,
Tom